Abstract:“Face” is the public self- image every member of a society wants to gain for himself. As a social phenomenon, “face” is important to everyone, existing in both Chinese and western cultures. Yet, people from different cultural backgrounds have different understanding on face. The differences in definition and contents of “face” between Chinese and western cultures are influencing cultural exchanges between China and western countries. Through analyzing the different views on “face” in the movie Guasha, the thesis aims to explore the reasons behind these differences. The paper also elaborates the obvious differences in thinking styles and cultures of China and western countries. Therefore, it helps us to lessen the cultural conflicts caused by cultural discrepancy and improve the quality of cultural exchanges among countries. This could reduce information misunderstanding caused by cultural discrepancy in intercultural communication.
Key words: Face culture; Cultural discrepancy; Guasha
中文摘要:面子是每个社会成员想为自己争取的公开的自我形象，其作为一种社会现象对每个人来说都很重要而且存在于中西文化中。 但不同文化背景下的人们对于面子有着不同的理解,中西文化对于面子的定义与内容上存在差异,而这些差异某种程度影响着中西方交际。本文通过分析电影《刮痧》里所表现出来的中西面子观差异，并挖掘造成其差异背后的原因，阐明中西方民族思维方式和文化有着明显的不同，在跨文化交际中要缓解文化差异造成的矛盾，从而提高不同文化间的交际质量，减少在跨文化交际中因文化差异所带来的信息误解。
关键词：面子观；文化差异；《刮痧》
